On Death and Dying

On Death and Dying

by Steve Loggins

10/12/09

There are many ways to die, some harsh, some full of pain,

like lemmings to the sea we run, toward death from life mundane,

It need not be, for death has died, and life now reigns supreme

Through Christ the son, the only one, whose death to life redeems.

The pain of death is left to us who live the temporal dream.

Facing death in certainty with the courage some have shown,

living last moments with dignity, a testimony we all should own,

But some do not, for death is harsh, and full of pain, and loss

for those who do not know the Lord - or understand His cross

They trade their life for death and realize not the cost.

For in losing life we gain it, and gain it for all time,

Instead of eighty years or so, our life becomes divine,

and Eternity is ours to have, in a freedom of His grace,

to live life as it should be lived, death is now replaced

with love and joy and peace within, sin has been erased.

Death is not harsh, nor full of pain, save for those who stay,

who cannot know the joy of life as lived in an eternal day,

We mourn for us, for we are here, in time and space and dust,

Corruptible flesh in a corruptible place, a place of death and rust,

and certainty of this one fact, Death will one day come for us.

And when God’s child comes to the day when he must say goodbye

to all those left to live the dream in this world wherein we cry,

We do so with the faith of one who knows the Father and His Son,

and knowing this, we have this hope, and surety that we have won,

and not just us, but all we love who have trusted in what God has done.

Death has no sting or triumph over God-spawned new creation

The old is gone, the new is born, through death to life a realization

of what is True, and what should be, of what we have always craved

a life with God as the center of us, a life without a grave

and... a land called Heaven....the home for all He saved.

(this poem dedicated to Shirley Reid, my secretary,

who knows no longer the pain of living... only the joy of it!)

Ghosts

Ghosts

By Steve Loggins

October 3, 2009

Ghosts of things we once held dear may visit any time,

Memories of joy and fear come calling, stay to dine

Reminding us of what we lost or wanted, never had

Making chill a warmer day, turning glad to sad.

Ghosts can scare us without cause, and never meaning to,

Or rise in nights of hellish haunts, with screams, and chains, and “boo”

A ghost is but a lingering shade of something gone away,

Yet never leaves completely, the past returns today.

Sometimes the ghost is faintly known with nothing but a whisper,

At other times they howl and weep, disturbing our night’s slumber

Or shadow us from day to day, reminding us of them

A poltergeist of harm to life, a focus on the “then”

Some want the ghosts, preferring them to living friends and kin,

A trap ensues for nothing good can ever come of him

Who cannot be alive again, in this sphere, only grim

A shadow of the real world, a spider’s web of “when”.

We must say goodbye to all our ghosts, who loiter in the way

Of living life and loving it, of walking in the day

Some ghosts are good to recognize, and wave to as they pass

But make none into houseguests, or prisoners held fast

For soon they are the jailers, and prisoners are we

With ghostly chains and bonds that forge from our own memory

The only Ghost we need to ask to stay with us always

Has a name called Holy, He frees us, no delays.

The Ghost of God is different from all that we have known

He’s ever present, living, true, a power He has shown

The breath of God, the source of life, the spirit of the One,

The inner dwelling life of God the Father and the Son

This Ghost is kind, and wants for us, the best things life can bring

He always points to goodness, to doing the right thing,

He guides, He leads, He formulates, the way of redeemed living

To God alone our praises bring, Thanks to His Ghost, we can sing!